1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an intersection visibility determination device that determines visibility at an intersection before a host vehicle, a vehicle in which the intersection visibility determination device is mounted, and a method for determining the visibility at the intersection.
2. Description of the Related Art
An intersection visibility determination device described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-99898 (JP-A-2003-99898) is an example of related art. The intersection visibility determination device according to JP-A-2003-99898 detects intersection information as to whether a road on which a host vehicle is present is a road that has lower priority than an intersecting road that intersects with the road on which the host vehicle is present or a road in which vehicles need to stop before entering the intersection of this road and the intersecting road. The intersection visibility determination device also detects visibility distance from the front end of the host vehicle to the center of a lane of the intersecting road, in which a vehicle that will cross the intersection is present. Then, the intersection visibility determination device estimates the probability that a driver of the host vehicle will meet with an accident based on the intersection information, the visibility distance, etc.
However, with the related art described above, the visibility distance may not be appropriately determined when it is expected that an object that is coming from the left side of the intersection and an object that is coming from the right side of the intersection are different in type, for example, when a bicycle is coming from the left side of the intersection and is traveling on a sidewalk that is on the right side of the intersecting road as viewed from this bicycle and a motorcycle traveling on the intersecting road is coming from the right side of the intersection.